Tell Hong Kong: Elephants can’t wait

A 2021 ban just encourages poachers to kill faster and maximize illicit profits

Hong Kong has bowed to international pressure and agreed to close its ivory markets. But the ban won’t be in effect until 2021. This four-year grace period could actually increase illegal ivory trade.

A distant target could lead to stockpiling, whereby poachers significantly increase elephant slaughter for traders who want to sell as much ivory as they can before the ban puts an end to their bloody profits.

Elephants need our full protection now. At current poaching rates, where nearly 100 elephants are killed a day, more than 146,000 could be slaughtered by 2021. And each time a mother elephant is killed, her dependent calves may die, too, wiping out two generations at once. Elephants have slow rates of reproduction with intervals of 3 to 6 years between births. Their regeneration rate averages 5 to 6 percent annually, compared to the 8 to 9 percent poaching rates, which is a net loss in population numbers.

We need the signatures of 40,000 wildlife advocates like you to send a strong message to Hong Kong: End ivory sales now!

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Subject
Speed up the ban to save elephants!

The Public Information Division of Hong Kong,

Message

As a member of African Wildlife Foundation's community of wildlife advocates, I strongly urge you to implement the ivory ban by 2019. The current date of 2021 may further imperil elephants as wildlife criminals increase operations to traffic as much ivory as possible into legal markets.

Elephants are essential to Africa’s ecosystem health, biodiversity, economy, and heritage. Further, people around the world love elephants and know they are more valuable alive than dead. Be part of the worldwide movement to save elephants.

Your decision to increase penalties for ivory trafficking is also an important step to curb black market sales. However, your ban’s four-year grace period provides legal cover to heartless ivory traders who want to make a killing off vulnerable elephants.

I join with AWF and the world’s community of wildlife advocates who ask you to shorten the four-year grace period and implement the ban in 2019. The date on which ivory is banned in Hong Kong and around the world is the date that will render this blood-product valueless. Only then will elephants be safe. Thank you.